


some unholy war

by majesdanes



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-23
Updated: 2016-03-23
Packaged: 2018-05-28 11:41:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6327571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/majesdanes/pseuds/majesdanes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma, Regina and the Charmings journey to the Underworld, where Emma is forced to come to terms with the unfortunate permanence of death, some inner demons she's been avoiding, and the realization that she's still loved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	some unholy war

**Author's Note:**

> This is meant to take place immediately after the (5A) mid-season finale, but it disregards everything that comes after. It also assumes that Henry and Gold are at home in Storybrooke, and erases Robin's existence entirely. It technically takes place pre-Swan Queen, since I don't think that Emma is at a place where she's totally ready to pursue a new relationship, given the context of 4B and the Dark Swan arc, but there are heavy implications throughout that they have feelings for each other. This was meant to be a short character study on Emma post-Dark Swan, since I was disappointed with the lack of attention Emma's struggles were given in 5A, but it got away from me. Brief reference to "Six of Crows" dialogue for anyone who catches it!

It _should_ be raining; the sky’s as pale and blank as a sheet of paper, and the threat of it seems to loom just on the precipice of possibility. But then, it’s always like that here–several shades of in-between, but rarely anything _solid;_ it’s more limbo than it is hell, this silent, empty place so like home, and so far from it all at once. They’d been here nearly a week so far, without facing a single threat, and still it itches at her–the foreignness of it exacerbated strangely, uncomfortably, by the familiar. 

Because it isn’t home, not _really_ ; the illusion–and the cynic in Emma has no choice but to believe that it _is_ an illusion–matches the true Storybooke street for street, every inch of it identical, from the shops with their wares displayed behind glass panes, to the homes, hers (her _parents_ ’, she corrects, and feels guilty for it in ways she can’t place) and Gold’s and Regina’s, too. But there’s something, she _knows,_ lying dormant beneath the surface of it all, something _off_ –like maybe everything’s positioned just a centimeter to the right of where it’s meant to be, or the color’s gone somehow duller than it was six feet above the ground; like maybe someone had traced over Storybooke the way a child traces pictures over a light-box, and it’s the same but it _isn’t,_ all the warmth and the character and the _meaning_ bleached out of it in transition. 

Snow only rolls her eyes when Emma points this out, fond but faintly exasperated, says something like, “Oh, Emma–did you _want_ fire and brimstone?” Emma had shrugged the last time, too weary to push the matter, but Regina had made a point of catching her eye, and the wariness in her expression was enough to reassure Emma that she wasn’t alone in thinking that something was– _wrong_. 

Emma knows better than most that a wolf is no threat in itself; it’s the ones in sheep’s clothing you’ve got to watch out for, isn’t that what they say? She’s no stranger to that–had had plenty of foster parents come and go with their warm words and warmer smiles; they’d all turned their backs in the end, chased her from their homes and their lives so that no trace of her was left, the mistake of her wiped away clean as a stain. She’d learned quickly enough never to trust that they would keep their promises. In the end, she’d felt the lies before they’d even been spoken–felt them coming in the way her skin crawled when a prospective parent clasped her hands across the table, the touch susceptibly soft. She senses manipulations in the same way now, the ugly, creeping tension of it–and this realm masquerading as a town is no different. 

And so Emma had combed the place from top to bottom, desperate for– _something_ ; for a crack in the facade, maybe, or else some inkling of where they might be hiding, Killian and all of the others who’d…died. She’d found nothing on either count, but still she leaves much earlier than the others each morning (slips out of her room, down the steps, away from this eerily authentic approximation of their home, without a sound). That critical voice in the back of her head (one that sounds–infuriatingly–a lot like Regina’s) tells her there’s no point in it; she’d accomplished nothing at _all_ over the course of the past few days of searching, unless driving herself deeper and deeper into stressful isolation counted for anything. 

But the alternative is “home,” in all its falseness; it’s her parents sitting across from each other at the kitchen table (identical to their own right down to the places where the wood’s been warped, where the whorls are branching and uneven) and arguing about where to go from here. She can tell that the tension is building between them all, though they’re careful never to speak of it; even Snow, who’d received the empty replica-town with such optimism at first, seems uncomfortable with the lack of progress they’d made, the eternal stillness of this land they’d so stupidly barreled into without a thought for the consequences. It’s every day waiting for the other shoe to drop, every day wondering who out of all of them will be the first to suggest that they go home–that maybe there’s no one to be found here after all. 

And Emma’s not sure how she feels about much (can hardly think for the way she’s so tired, tired, tired–right down to her bones), but she knows she couldn’t bear to hear _that_. 

It’s on the seventh day of wandering (under the guise of a purposeful search) that Emma gives up. Utterly alone on pseudo-Main Street, she lets her feet carry her toward the welcome familiarity of Granny’s Diner; bells jingle overhead as the door swings open, echoing in the silence. She slips into the first booth she sees, knowing all of them would (inevitably) be unoccupied. 

It’s all she can do to breathe in, breathe out, breathe in again, before dropping her head in her hands. 

She’d purged the darkness inside of her, or so they all said, but this feeling constricting her chest isn’t all that different from what she’d felt as the Dark One–thick, suffocating, claustrophobic. Her parents had come all this way, readily endangering themselves for the sake of her happiness; she should be overwhelmed with gratitude, not desperate to get away from the two of them both. And how is it possible, that she wants her father’s arms around her, wants the softness of her mother’s hands threading through her hair, and reviles the very thought of their touch at the same time? How is it possible that she yearns for the knowledge that Killian is _safe_ and, even then, wants never to look at him again, never to be reminded of the things he’d said to her? And, Regina–

Everything, a contradiction–everything a fucking _mess_. 

The thought of it is almost amusing (well, _some_ things never change, huh, Swan?), and she chokes out a watery laugh, the sound of it muffled against her palms. “What I wouldn’t do for a drink right now,” she mutters, wry to mask the hurt in her voice–like even here, with no one to hear her, the reality of it is something shameful.

“That’s the best idea you’ve had all week,” comes Regina’s voice, smooth and sarcastic as ever, and Emma bolts upright at the sound of it. How she’d come so close without making a sound (without even jostling the bells over the door, for God’s sake) is impossible to say–probably ( _literal_ ) witchcraft, knowing her. 

“It’d be better if we actually _had_ anything to drink,” Emma says, scrubbing at the tears she’s _sure_ still stain her cheeks; if Regina’s seen them, though, she doesn’t comment, only strides across the room, behind the counter, and proceeds to rifle through the cabinets there. “What are you do–” 

“Use your head for once, Swan,” she says, but there’s no bite to the words, and when she turns around it’s with a bottle of vodka clutched triumphantly in her hand. “We’ve been eating the food from our homes all this time, haven’t we?” 

It hadn’t even occurred to Emma, but now that she thought about it– “The same things we had at home are here. Right down to the food,” she says, “But how–” 

There’s the metallic shudder of a top coming loose, the gentle clink of two shot glasses being set down on the table in front of her. “I’m more interested in what happens when we run _out_ of it.” Regina reaches for one of the shots. “If I die of starvation with your mother’s voice nagging in my ear, I’ll never forgive you for it.” 

Emma bites back what definitely is _not_ a grin, and gives a pointed roll of the eyes for good measure. “Tell your ghost to take it up with my ghost,” she says, and clinks her glass against Regina’s. “Cheers.”  

“Cheers,” Regina says, a little too dryly to be totally sincere, and knocks back her own shot in one, swift move. 

Emma raises a brow–tries, jokingly, “Never exactly figured you for a party girl.” But Regina is appraising her over the rim of a second helping of vodka, eyes hard. 

“What are you doing here?”  

“Drinking,” Emma says flatly, and regrets it instantly. She knows all too well that flippancy won’t be enough to shake Regina; worse, it’ll only make her angrier, more persistent. 

“ _Emma_ ,” Regina snaps, draws out the name like something foreign, “We can’t all just live here indefinitely while we wait for you to make up your mind about what the hell to do next. Some of us have _lives_ to return to.” 

It’s every doubt and insecurity she’d been grappling with for days, dredged up and flung at her without warning (a feat only Regina could ever hope to accomplish), and Emma’s on the defensive almost instantly. “Don’t you think I know that?” she asks, gesturing so emphatically that Regina’s forced to nudge the shot glasses out of the path of her arms. “ _Jesus_ , what exactly do you want from me? I didn’t force you to come here! I didn’t even _ask_ you. I came here to find Killian. And I’m not leaving until I have.”

Regina regards her so coolly that Emma’s left feeling vaguely humiliated by the outburst almost as soon as she’d finished with it; she can already feel the warmth of a flush building in her cheeks, at the nape of her neck. A beat passes, the discomfort welling in her. Then Regina asks, eyes unreadable: “Do you love him?” 

Emma braces herself without meaning to, shoulders tensed as though for a fight. “I– _we–_ all of us came here, risked our lives! To…find him.” Regina doesn’t move, doesn’t blink, and the silence stretches taut between them, a rubber-band about to snap.

“Just _say_ it, Regina,” she says, impatient now, and _furious_ with herself for the catch in her voice. “Say what you came here to tell me! I’m selfish, right? It’s my fault we’re trapped here. God, for all we know, Killian might not even fucking _be_ here! We may never get home. And if my family dies here, it’ll be on my head. Is that what you were looking for? Is that what you wanted to hear? Because I _know_.”   

Emma gets, clumsily, to her feet–puts out a hand to steady herself and turns so that her tear-streaked face is in shadow; better that than the humiliation, the “I told you so,” no doubt all but scrawled across Regina’s face in ink– 

“That wasn’t what I came here to tell you.” 

There’s something in the words that’s wholly unlike Regina–tentative, apologetic. She strains forward in her seat, as though to stand, then seems to think better of it. Instead, she sits back with gloved hands folded stiffly in her lap, eyes shuttered. “You’re still the Savior, Emma; that hasn’t changed. Everyone is selfish–that’s only human. But you least of all of us.”  

Emma swallows, bled suddenly, achingly dry of anger; what’s left in its wake is that same, numbing exhaustion. She passes a tired hand over her forehead, terrified of the feeling, the familiar emptiness of it all. “Regina,” she says, and Regina startles, glances up with something like concern. “Why are you here? Like– _really_. Why did you come here with us in the first place?”   

There’s a beat. Regina sweeps a strand of hair back from her forehead, tucks it slowly and methodically behind her ear, and Emma wonders–absently–if she’s stalling for time. “Well, you _were_ weeping,” she says finally, sardonic. She stands, smooths her skirt with an easy, practiced motion, careful not to meet Emma’s eyes. “I’m not completely heartless, despite what you might think.” 

It’s frustrating, the constant, deliberate evasions; the Regina of only moments before, who’d watched her so openly, spoken without pretense or condescension, already seems half like a dream now. And Emma wants more than stolen moments, more than brief glimpses of the Regina obscured beneath layers and layers of armor. “You know that’s not what I mean. Why are you _here_? In the Underworld? When you could have been home, in the _real_ Storybrooke, safe with Henry?” 

 Regina opens her mouth, closes it again without a sound–but no words come. She’s gone before Emma can press the matter, vanished in a puff of purple smoke; she leaves Emma wanting, and _wanting_ , and not knowing what or why. 

 

* * *

  

Regina’s the one who suggests that they dig; there’s a hesitance to the words (like maybe she’d known all along, and just hadn’t wanted to say it), but Emma hardly registers that. Because something _clicks_ into place in the instant following, a realization that _hurts_ as if something had gripped inside her chest and squeezed tight. _Oh,_ she thinks, feeling sick, _God_ , o _f course._

The cemetery is as deserted as the rest of the town, and utterly silent in its abandonment. Emma presses ahead of the group; she can feel the soles of her boots sinking further into mud and dew-slick grass with every step, as though the earth is trying to tug her down beneath it, too. Greedy for still more bodies, no doubt–as though it hadn’t claimed enough of them. 

Snow is the first to catch up, huffing from the jog; she lays a hand on Emma’s arm, and the touch is so sweet (so gentle) that Emma feels bile gathering somewhere in the back of her throat. She doesn’t turn to face her, just focuses on steadying her breathing.

“Emma,” Snow starts, warning in her voice. She’s drawing level with Emma now, so that it’s almost impossible to avoid eye contact; Emma makes a valiant effort anyway. 

“What?” Emma says, and it’s not meant to come out _so_ –so hard, and flat, and cold, but it does, and Snow’s face falls; Emma’s stomach churns. 

Snow steels herself, then, as if she _knows_ Emma won’t like whatever it is that she’s about to say. And then, more firmly: “Maybe we shouldn’t be doing this.”

“And _what_?” Emma asks in vicious undertones, “Just leave him there to rot?”

“We don’t know that he’s even _buried_ there, Emma! Regina has no idea what’s really going on here–none of us do!” 

Regina glances up at the sound of her name, but if she’d been listening, she doesn’t contribute anything–only holds Emma’s gaze for the space of a second, then looks away. Her eyes widen, then, with a kind of horror. “Emma– ” she manages, the sound strangled, and then falls silent. There’s no need for her to say anything more; Emma follows her line of sight, casts her eyes over countless anonymous headstones until finally, she finds it.  

“ _Emma_ ,” Snow echoes in warning, but Emma doesn’t hear–doesn’t care. She kneels, a strange pressure building in her chest, and swipes the pad of a thumb along the carved-out words: _Killian Jones._

“Your mother’s right, you know.” It’s Regina, kneeling beside her. “I don’t know that we’ll find him here.” Emma watches her closely–takes in the incongruity of it all, _Regina_ with the knees of her ridiculous Armani pants sinking into the mud around Killian’s grave–for _her–_ and feels that terrifying numbness begin to ebb, in increments. 

(She doesn’t give that too much thought.)

Instead, Emma traces the stark lines of the ‘K’, then lets her hand drop. She meets Regina’s eyes and tries to summon a smile for her. “But you suspect,” she says quietly, “Don’t you?” 

Regina inclines her head. 

And so they dig. David does most of the work, leans a shoulder hard on the handle and lifts out with a grunt, one clod of soil after the next until the mound it makes is nearly as tall as he is; he turns to Emma, once, wiping the sweat from his brow, and smiles at her with far too much warmth. She thinks, watching him, that he doesn’t deserve this–not him, not any of them. 

Snow is the first to hit something solid, the resonant _tap_ of metal against wood a warning cry in the silence; she inhales sharply, hands shaking with such a vengeance it’s a wonder she can still grip the shovel so tightly. By the time they’ve brushed the burnished surface clean, the sun is low in the sky, and the cemetery is alive with shadows. They heave the coffin open, all four of them, stumbling back with surprise when the heavy lid finally gives.   

And there he is, perfectly preserved–cold to the touch, but surely, unmistakably Killian. 

It’s not anguish, exactly, that makes Emma’s pulse a hummingbird-thrum in her wrists; it’s something– _other_ , something infinitely more frightening. Maybe it’s that she knows–from the moment she sees his still face–exactly what will come next. It passes over her like the dawn, the knowledge that everything ends or begins with this moment–death for neither of them, or else for both.

Regina must sense it too, see it in the fear that stiffens into resolve on Emma’s face, and she lurches forward, furious. “ _No_. Absolutely not.”

“Regina,” she says, and she’s pleading, impossibly. “I can’t do this alone. I need you to help me.” 

But Regina only whirls around, utterly volatile, to point an accusing finger at Emma’s parents. “Are you _actually_ going to stand by and let her do this?” 

Their answer doesn’t matter, of course–not really. It’s Regina’s approval that’s needed, Regina’s guiding hand that would make all of this possible. Because she’d tried, _God,_ had she tried: Last night, and the one before, crouching alone in her room with fingers pressed hard up against her own chest, digging past skin and bone in ways that felt unnatural, felt like _violation_ , and she couldn’t. 

Couldn’t.  

(Not alone.)

“ _Regina._ ” The name wrenches out of her, high and hurting and so, unspeakably lost. 

Relucantly, Regina nods. 

  

* * *

  

She takes Emma’s hand, and guides it so that both their palms rest against Emma’s chest, the press of them tangible, warm. Regina is closer than Emma could ever remember her being, so that a strand of her dark hair tickles Emma’s cheek; she can make out every freckle, every mole and beauty mark. A moment passes like that, one minute or maybe several, just the two of them and skin on skin and the thud of Emma’s heart beating time beneath both their hands, so that she nearly forgets what it is they’re about to do. 

Then, finally, Regina speaks. “Flesh isn’t a barrier to magic,” she says hoarsely. “It exists, but it’s… inconsequential–like a hand passing through air. You know that.” She doesn’t say why–doesn’t say that she’d _seen_ her with Merida’s heart in her hand, glowing fever-bright for all of them to see. Emma chokes back the memory; she can’t bring herself to say that it’s _different_ when it’s her own chest–her own heart, shying away from the touch of a foreign hand. What kind of monster would that make her, then, to have inflicted that pain on another person?   

It’s more than that anyway, she knows.  

“Your mother tried to take my heart once,” Emma murmurs, loud enough only for Regina to hear; when Regina’s eyes meet her own, there’s horror in them, and something like guilt, and Emma wants to say, _It’s not your fault,_ and _You aren’t her_ , but she can’t seem to stop the story from pouring out of her. “She tried,” she amends, “But she couldn’t do it. It…rejected her; she couldn’t touch it.” 

“You aren’t my mother, Emma,” Regina tells her, voice strained. “It’s your own heart. I see no reason why you shouldn’t be able to– ” 

“I tried,” she whispers, and Regina stiffens beside her. “It hurt–more than anything. And it–it wouldn’t come out. But you–”

“You think _I_ could reach your heart, when even you can’t?” There’s venom in the words, more than Emma had heard from her in years; there’s hope, though, too. She tugs her hand free, leaving Emma with a palm still flush against her chest, open and empty. It clenches there, forms a white-knuckled fist.  

“It’s worth a try.” 

 

* * * 

 

Emma is less confident than she’d let on; her hand drops to her side, burrows into her pocket and then comes out again, as if she isn’t entirely sure what to do with it. She shifts in place, smiling that sad, restrained smile Regina had become all too accustomed to seeing in recent months. 

There’s a flash of what once was–the toothy grin, the brightness and the warmth of it all–and the memory makes her falter. But she _had_ agreed, and there Emma stands: Hardly a handbreadth away from her, soft and hopeful and utterly _Emma,_ even if there’s a heaviness to her that hadn’t been there before. 

And Regina can’t deny her this, no matter how foolish that concession must make her. 

“This will hurt,” she cautions, “If it even works. I can’t guarantee that it will.” 

Emma squares her jaw; she nods. “Sure you know what you’re doing and all, right?” 

Regina can’t help but smile, albeit grimly. “If I succeed, yours won’t be the first Charming heart I’ve taken.” 

“Oh.” Emma’s eyes dart toward her parents, where they huddle together in the chill night air, eying her with undisguised worry. “Kinda forgot about that.” 

“I haven’t.” 

No, she remembers it all too well–that impossible effort to free David’s heart, trapped within a rib cage so like a fortress that the fervent _push_ of her hand past his defenses was enough to send him reeling with pain. And yet Snow’s heart had followed her–as it always seemed to–far too willingly; her hand had plunged past the skin and bone of her as easily as if Snow was only gauze and light, so soft even now. It had been the same on the porch steps, all those years ago, when Regina had torn Snow’s heart from her breast with no thought in her head but to kill her where she stood. And Regina had wondered, even half-sick with hatred, how it was that she’d endured so much and come away so kind, and so open; she could weep with the unfairness of it, if she weren’t so angry instead.  

She finds Snow’s eyes now, over the rims of the tombs that mark the graves of the dead–and Snow nods, imperceptibly. It’s different this time, they both know. 

It’s Emma. 

Regina swallows back the familiar self-loathing building in her sure and steady as the tide; it doesn’t matter, that the prospect of ripping Emma’s beating heart from her chest disgusts her in ways she can’t dare put a name to. It doesn’t matter that she’s _frightened_ at the thought, heart pounding too hard and too heavy, like a creature caged and desperate to escape. It doesn’t–any of it–matter at all. 

She’d said once that it wasn’t her heart she was trying to protect–that it was Emma’s. She wonders, now, when it was that she’d decided to break that promise. 

It’s a useless question, of course; she’d known from the moment Emma asked it of her.

She shakes away the thought, faintly uncomfortable–even embarrassed–by the immediacy of it. 

“Are you ready?” 

Emma nods; Regina had almost wished she wouldn’t.  

Then her hand is on Emma’s chest, splayed against the white fabric there; another beat, a breath, and she exerts pressure, just the slightest thrust of her palm against the place where Emma’s heart beats. On some level, Regina expects to meet with the same resistance Emma’s father had shown; surely after everything, no matter her reassurances to the contrary (the promise that they were _friends–_ that her trespasses, somehow, had been miraculously forgiven), Regina was the _last_ person Emma would want to encounter in this capacity. 

But then, perhaps she’d been wrong because, for all Emma’s outward skepticism, Regina’s fingers break the surface in an instant, past soft cotton, past the smooth expanse of skin, through muscle and tissue and blood and bone to the beating center of it all. Emma gasps at the contact. Somewhere in her periphery, she sees Charming lurch forward, sees Snow put out a hand to restrain him. Emma’s eyes, though, are locked on Regina’s, rich with some meaning she can’t begin to comprehend–and Regina, panic building in her by the moment, looks anywhere but back at her. 

The heart comes free, with a shudder from Emma. It glows brightly in Regina’s outstretched hand, pure and pulsing. And it’s inexplicable, the foreignness of it, the _intimacy_ ; she’d held so many hearts, after all, but then–never Emma Swan’s. She’s too in awe even to feel scornful when she thinks: _It’s beautiful._

Regina’s hand shakes, and she knows– _knows_ that it’s been too long, that this heart isn’t hers to hold. Still, she can’t tear her eyes from the sight of it; there’s warmth in it, and strength. There’s longing, and loneliness, and resentment. All of it laid bare and too, _too_ tangible, so that the weight of it leaves her breathless.   

Emma catches her eye, surprise giving way to sudden guardedness, and Regina’s cheeks flush dark. “Here,” she says, more harshly than she’d meant to, and shoves the heart into Emma’s waiting hands.  

Emma exhales, shakes out her shoulders like she’s steeling herself for what’s ahead. “Right. So, I just–” She looks helpless, probing at her own heart with cautious fingers, as though in the hopes that it will split in half from sheer force of will. Regina tamps down on the urge to reach out, close her hands over Emma’s and guide her through this, too. 

That is _not_ what she’d signed up for. 

“Ms. Swan, if you think for a _second_ I’m going to–”  

Emma quirks a brow. “Ms. Swan,” she echoes dryly. The light from the heart bathes her face; it casts the planes of it in shadow, but it picks out the brightness of her eyes, and that nameless _something_ (just bordering on affection) that warms them. “I thought we were past that,” she says, still glowing, and grins like she hasn’t in months.   

Regina’s heart, ugly, traitorous thing that it is, swoops in her chest. 

“Must I teach you _everything_ ,” she bites out. But Emma’s smile takes on a watery quality, the terror she must feel drawn closer to the surface, and Regina softens by degrees. “If only you’d studied more when you were my student,” she amends, and the jibe isn’t fond (could never be _that_ ), but it isn’t–not, either. 

And Snow, as stolid and uncompromising as ever, watches Regina with eyes that seem to see right through to the heart of her. 

Shaken now, and irritable, she looks away. “You’ll need to use a great deal of force, Emma. This isn’t–” She swallows, not wanting to frighten her more, and yet wholly unwilling to sugarcoat the truth. “It isn’t natural. A heart isn’t meant to be split. If it isn’t done right, there can be…repercussions.” 

“But my parents,” Emma prompts, “They did it.”  

Regina casts her eyes toward Snow and her husband, the two of them intertwined, twin figures of worry in the distance. “Yes,” she concedes, bowing her head. “They did.” 

This seems to be reassurance enough for Emma, because she grips the heart tightly on either side and _wrenches_. Her reaction is instantaneous; a scream tears out of her, hoarse and choked. And again, more fiercely this time, she pulls, the heart stretching impossibly to meet tugging fists–and screams, and screams, until Regina is sure she’s going to wretch. Emma falls to her knees and Regina moves with her, guiding. She braces her hands on Emma’s shoulders, even as Emma hunches forward and drops her head in her hands, that mass of curls (paler now, not the warm burst of gold they’d once been) obscuring her face and the pain it must show.   

Distantly, she can hear that Snow and David are screaming Emma’s name, but Regina has eyes for no one but Emma; she seems so desperate and diminished that it aches to look at her. “Emma,” Regina murmurs, and sweeps the hair from her face without thinking. Emma is white with fear. And Regina, seeing her, knows that it must end here; no person could possibly go further. 

Emma proves her wrong; shaking, she tears and tears at the heart in her hands until the glow of it flickers, dulls. _Idiot,_ Regina thinks, and _How could you be so stupid?_ and _How could you be so brave?_

_“Enough,”_ she snaps, nails digging so hard into the skin of Emma’s shoulders that she’s forced to meet Regina’s eyes. 

“Regina is right.” It’s Snow, coming to kneel beside them with Charming’s hand in hers. She strokes a hand through Emma’s hair, the gesture loving and easy and _intimate._ Regina tells herself the familiar ugliness that rises up in her at the sight is merely old dislike resurfacing, and not–something else. “Please,” says Snow, “We’ll find another way, Emma–but not like this.”  

Emma stands, and Snow must take this for agreement because she stands too, the relief clear in her eyes; Regina knows better, and before Emma can deal the blow that will kill her, Regina grabs the heart from her hands and thrusts it, _hard_ , back in her chest. Immediately, color floods Emma’s cheeks. 

Emma makes a noise of outrage somewhere in the back of her throat. Regina only stalks off, livid, before she can betray herself further.

  

***

 

Emma had expected one of two outcomes; there was either success, or there was death, but no alternative. And definitely not _this_ : The three of them, ranged around the kitchen table as though nothing had changed, Snow’s hand a reassuring weight on her forearm.  

Emma had transported Killian’s body from the cemetery to the apartment with a flick of her wrist, but it was her parents who had settled him on the bed of an unused room, her parents who had tended to him when Emma couldn’t bring herself to do it; Snow had emerged with a smile that was rueful, almost apologetic.  

“Maybe some hot chocolate,” she suggests now, voice soft; she’d been that way since they’d returned from the cemetery, all gentle murmurs and halting movements, like Emma was some forest animal she didn’t want to spook. At least David was less prone to treating Emma like she was breakable; he’d only clapped his hand over her shoulder, fixed her with that knowing look, and retreated into another room. He seemed determined to give her space, and for that she was grateful; after all, what could he possibly say that would make this _better_?   

“Emma?” Snow presses, and Emma shakes herself from the reverie.  

“Um…No, that’s okay. I think I need to, uh–go for a walk. Clear my head, you know?” Snow nods her understanding, like this is something that stands to reason, and Emma hadn’t _really_ been planning to leave the relative warmth and safety of the apartment for the Underworld with all its shadows, but–well, she’d already committed, and that was that. 

She knows, besides, exactly what she’s going to do as soon as the cramped, over-brightness of the apartment is behind her. In a puff of pale smoke, she vanishes; it’s still unsettling, the experience of here-one-second and gone-the-next, and she pitches forward when she reappears across town. Emma hadn’t known _where_ she was going (had only focused on the _who_ of it, anger driving her onward like a compass), but she recognizes the place as soon as she sees it, all stone and open space, and an echo that answers each step she takes, no matter how soft. 

And then it doesn’t matter anymore, because she’s _running_ , boots pounding the steps two at a time until the lower level of the mausoleum opens wide all around her. Regina regards her as though she’s been waiting for this, like somehow she’d known it was only a matter of time until Emma Swan came stormingback into her life, and Emma is _shaking_ with the presumption of it. “Why do you always have to make everything so _difficult_?” she snaps, and feels resentment coil tight in the pit of her chest when her voice hitches halfway through. 

If Regina had meant to take the moral high ground, she loses sight of it the moment Emma speaks. She sheds calm and control like a second skin; in an instant, she’s inches from Emma, _radiating_ fury like something palpable, like magic without color or consequence. And it’s familiar, the two of them, magnets circling the same pole, never meeting. “Why do _I_ make things difficult? Ms. Swan, I believe you have the two of us confused!” she says, nearly laughing in her anger, and Emma stiffens, scowls.

 “I had everything under control until _you_ decided to–” 

Regina’s voice hardens. “To what? Stop you from doing something you’d live to regret? If you even lived at all! You could have _died_ , Emma. Do you not understand that?”

“What I _understand_ is that you promised to help me. And you lied.” 

Regina sucks in an impatient breath. “When will you stop _punishing_ yourself? He’s gone, Emma! And no amount of self-flagellation will bring him back!” 

That’s enough to stop Emma in her tracks, make every bitter word she’d been desperate to say all but evaporate; the familiar emptiness rears up in her again, more a sickness than an anger, hollow and numbing. She could kick herself for coming here, for providing Regina with just the ammo she’d needed, even knowing she’d aim for the jugular. There were years of history between them; that was more than enough time to pick up on patterns, to learn to keep her distance where it counted, and still she returned and returned, inexorably drawn to whatever disaster _this_ was.  

The difference, now, is that it matters–that, God, she _cares_.  

Maybe Regina does, too, because she frowns, worries her lip between her teeth. Guilt, too late now to mean much. “Emma–Emma, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.” 

“I know exactly how you meant it,” Emma says, and she’s tired, suddenly; she wishes she could sleep, for long enough that things would feel different when she woke. 

“No, I–I don’t think that you do.” Regina clears her throat, tucks a lock of hair behind her ear; it’s uncharacteristically awkward of her, a self-conscious tic. “You saw what my mother did to Daniel. And you saw what I became. But you don’t know what happened in between.” She forces a rueful smile; Emma doesn’t return the favor, only crosses her arms expectantly over her chest, but she doesn’t leave, either, and that’s–something. Regina seems to take heart from it.  

“I turned to magic,” she says, “Partially because I thought it would free me from my mother–and it did. But that wasn’t…the only reason. Emma, I was desperate to resurrect him; I would have given anything. I would have _done_ anything. But I wasn’t capable of reviving him; had I known what I do now…had I split my heart.” She falters, looks down at her hands. “I can’t say, if it would have worked…if things would have been different, for me. But he did come back to me, eventually–and Emma, he wasn’t the same man. He was in pain and he–he was unhappy. He begged me to let him go. To move on.” 

“Regina–”But she holds up a hand, silencing whatever sympathy Emma had meant to give. 

“I only meant that I struggled, Emma. For a very long time. I sometimes think that I learned to hurt myself before I ever hurt anyone else.”

“And now?” Emma asks, knowing the answer. 

Looking at the stone floor–anywhere but at Emma Swan’s tentatively hopeful eyes, she says, “I suppose I believe…that you deserve better.”  

Emma thinks of Regina’s hand hovering over her heart, thinks of the fury in her face–of the fear; she thinks of Regina’s hands clasped in hers, thinks of _My gift to you is good memories_. She thinks of Regina with her arms spread wide to tempt the monster toward her, all too willing to die so that Emma would live. “Okay,” she breathes. “Okay. Thank you.” 

It’s inadequate, she knows. Her heart pounds in her ears, and she’s hyperaware of Regina’s eyes on her, utterly, uncharacteristically bare. 

“Regina,” she tries again, less tentative now, “I–” She pauses, breaks off mid-sentence. It doesn’t make sense, not in the way that she can _name_ , but something is–off. Everything _looks_ the same, in form and shape, but the texture of it all is…blurred, somehow, like a world seen through glass fogged over. 

A moment passes, heavy with uncertainty, until sudden realization hits, and Regina’s eyes widen with horror. It’s worse now, less a _suggestion_ and more a clear sign; the walls, smooth stone before, shift and coalesce, shimmering into focus and out again until Emma’s eyes ache with watching it. It’s then that the floor quakes beneath them, shudders  as though protesting their combined weight. 

Regina shouts, “GO!” just as the roof gives a great, drawn-out creak, and the walls tip forward. It isn’t a warning Emma needs; the place is already collapsing in on itself like a house of cards, sending up waves of rock and stone-turned-dust that make her cough whenever she dares to suck in a breath. 

She’s halfway to the stairs when she hears Regina cry out. The door is steps from her, open and waiting and not likely to remain intact for much longer; she whirls around anyway, bolts back and kneels beside Regina. She’s pinioned there, leg trapped beneath one of the great pillars that had broken apart and toppled; Emma can only imagine that it’s agony, that even if she’d had the impossible super strength to lift it off her, Regina wouldn’t be able to walk in the aftermath. “Deja vu, huh?” she murmurs, remembering a fire, and a mayor who’d looked at her with more hatred than Emma could fathom. 

It’s different now–different because Regina’s fear, her anger, only doubles when her eyes meet Emma’s. “Swan, just _go_ ,” she hisses, teeth clenched around the pain that’s swiftly blooming. She struggles for the right words, something harsh enough to convince Emma that she _deserves_ abandonment; it’s not far from true, after all. 

But Emma–idiotic, compassionate, _valiant_ Emma–only grins, warm and easy, like the world isn’t coming to pieces all around them. “Right,” she says, “like I’m just supposed to leave you here?” 

Emma leans over, braces her arms against the pillar and tries an experimental tug; it doesn’t give so much as an inch. “ _Emma_ ,” she presses, and it’s such a desperate, vehement sound that Emma is momentarily distracted; she can’t help but glance at Regina in her periphery.

“I’m sorry,” Emma says, without knowing what it is that she’s apologizing for. Regina doesn’t answer; there’s a rush of wind, a last shudder, a roar from the ceiling as it gives, and–silence.

 

***

 

Emma wakes with the sun on her face. 

It streams down, honeyed and bright; her cheeks feel warm from the touch of it. There’s something poking at her hips, something jagged. She twists around, wincing when that only digs the point of it further in. Emma doesn’t want to open her eyes, doesn’t want to surrender the weight of the sunlight on her closed lids, the ease of not knowing–but eventually, groaning, she does. 

And there is nothing. 

Or maybe that isn’t true, strictly speaking; there’s rubble and shrapnel, an ugly grey mound of it. And there’s land. Too much of it to measure, extending off into the distance. 

There’s these things–and nothing else. 

A beat passes, some sourceless panic building in her, and she remembers. 

“Regina!” Emma scrabbles for purchase on the mountain of stone, digs both hands into the heart of it and claws and pulls until rock comes away in her bare hands. She digs until she’s burning with it, until the skin of her palms flakes away, grows red and raw. She swears under her breath, a damp, ugly sound, and swipes the torn cuff of her sleeve over her eyes. 

Emma finds her jewelry before she finds Regina–just a watch, scratched and battered nearly beyond recognition, the time beneath the shattered glass dome stuck at 8:15. She jams it in her pocket and works faster until her knuckle brushes against the softness of hair, until she finds a hand and holds it, hard. She’s scrambling for a pulse the instant Regina is free, two fingers on the side of Regina’s neck, eyes squeezed shut, and– 

She’s alive. _God_ , she’s breathing; she’s alive. 

“Regina… _Regina_!” 

It takes nearly ten minutes of shaking her, of calling her name, for Regina to blink once, twice, like she’s coming out of a fog. “Emma…” she murmurs, recognition dawning, and Emma gives a shaky smile. 

“It wasn’t real,” she breathes, shaken. “Regina, none of it was ever real.”

Regina passes a weary hand over her forehead, hissing with pain when her knuckle bumps up against the bruise blooming on her forehead. “Well, I could’ve told you _that_ much,” she sighs, but there’s a fondness to the exasperation and Emma finds, impossibly, that she’s grinning–bright and toothy. Regina smiles back before she can stop herself, a knee-jerk reaction to Emma’s joy; it’s a wry smile, a tired one, but it’s genuine. “So, Savior: What exactly are we supposed to do now?” 

Emma rolls out her shoulders, shrugs. “We find my parents,” she says, after a moment. "And then we blow this crazy joint.” She leans forward, grasps Regina’s hand firmly in her own and pulls her up. “You in?”

They're face to face, Emma's nose nearly brushing her own; weariness shows in the lines of her eyes, the troubled crease of her forehead. But that impossible smattering of freckles still show through the ghostly pallor of her skin; she still dimples when she smiles, and her hand is warm and steady in Regina's. It's not perfect, but it's progress; it's _Emma_ , picking up the pieces, and her heart catches at the sight–at the endless possibility of it. 

"I'm in," she says. "Let's go home." 


End file.
